Lesson Plan: Pizzaria

Pizzeria 3940: Math lesson plan

By Veronique Lavoie & Krista St. Croix

Grade level: 1

Strand: Number sense

Lesson Objectives

Students will:

• further develop counting skills

• discover different ways to make up the number 6

• understand graphing as another means to represent a number

• be able to connect number concepts to the real world

Materials:

Pizza:

• construction paper cut into shape of pizza crust (one for each group of students)

Toppings:

• sections of green pipe cleaner to represent green pepper

• yellow foam cut outs to represent pineapple

• orange pom-poms to represent pepperoni

• purple ribbon to represent onion

• wooden pieces to represent mushrooms

• pink sisal squares to represent ham

* Note: other materials can be used to represent these or other toppings, but they should be different in colour and texture. There should be enough for each group to use 6 toppings.

Procedure:

Introduction:

Ask the class if they like to eat pizza. Have a discussion with them about their favorite pizza toppings. For example say “My favorite pizza topping is pepperoni. What do you like on your pizza?” Record students' answers on board or chart paper. Once this is completed, toppings can be modified to suit students' interest.

Activity:

Tell the class that today we will pretending to open a class pizzeria, and they will be the chefs. Hold up a pizza crust, and tell them that this is their base. Then hold up the different toppings and explain what each item represents. Tell the students that in groups of 4 or 5, they will create as many different pizzas as they can, using only 6 toppings on each pizza. They will record their pizza creations on the handout provided. They can create as many different pizzas as they wish, but they must stay within the 6 topping limit.

Closing:

After the students have been working for about 15 minutes, have a class discussion about the different approaches they have taken and why. Ask each group to share a combination with the class. Discover with them the different ways in which they created a pizza using only 6 toppings. Collect the handouts and materials from each group.

Assessment

Assessment for this activity will be done through teacher observation and anecdotal notes. The teacher will monitor student performance, making note of which students had some difficulty and those that could benefit from additional challenging problem solving activities. Some students may be early finishers and could use larger number combination (8 or 10, for example). A checklist could be used as a form of assessment as well. A sample checklist is below.

Observation	Yes	No
Students are engaged and offer opinions
Students followed direction and stayed within given limitations
Students demonstrate proper use and understanding of manipulative's
Students demonstrate an understanding and correct use of recording sheet

***This lesson plan has been adapted from a lesson described in the text “Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally” by John A. VandeWall. The lesson plan “Earl's sandwich can be found on page 143 in the text.

And The Teaching Episodes Begin !

Today our math class like many to follow was based on our teaching episode presentations. There were three groups that gave their presentations today. My partner and I were one of these three groups but I will talk about that in my next blog.

I consider the opportunity to participate as a student in these presentations as very insightful and much like the last few classes to be very hands on. This experience greatly enhanced my interest in teaching in a more problem solving way and it expanded my understanding of how beneficial creating problem solving activities like the ones that were demonstrated can be so useful and helpful within a classroom setting. The opportunity to be placed in the position that children will be in and to see things from a different perspective can change ones outlook in amazing ways due to the fact that you are experiencing and getting an idea of what makes this method so successful.

The variety of games/ activities presented were very creative and really got me thinking about how easy it is to create and incorporate this type of teaching in the classroom and how it can be used in every area of math. It is also evident of the cross-curricular links that just seem to pop up everywhere and how you can take areas of other subjects into math or bring math into those different areas. For example the presentation dealing with tallying and graphing by using the different seasons you can easily take that idea and incorporate it to build on a science unit that relates to the different seasons.

Also I found that when you use a more exploring and self-discovery method of teaching that it instantly becomes of more interest for the students. When I was in primary and elementary school math was always considered to be the boring subject or the one that was focused completely on desk work but I can see this way of teaching as changing that negative attitude towards math and compelling children to want to participate and even get excited about doing math problems. The more meaning that can be placed on math and reasoning of how we use it so much will greater peoples understanding of why its so important to use this method of math in classrooms.

I really enjoyed all the presentations and am excited to see the ones that are to come. I find them to be inspiring and can easily see me using ones much like them when I have my very own classroom.

Fun With Fractions and Creative Problem Solving

Today we began class by playing and experimenting with our colourful shapes that represented a specific fraction. For example the full white sheet represented a whole unit, while the pink paper that was cut down the middle represented two halves. The opportunity to observe and distinguish the colors into the appropriate fraction that they represented made it much easier to understand what each fraction was and why. For example when looking at how two halves equal a whole the student is able to place the two halves over the whole and see that they are the same.

Having a visual element greatly enhances the ability for students to make connections between definitions and words. From my own experience I know that having this type of engagement when I was a student would have made learning fractions a much easier challenge. I found that by having a visual aid made comprehension of the material and ideas much more meaningful as the activity was not only words but had a concrete base behind it. When I was in school there were only numbers recited over and over and specific formulas and rules to follow as a means of directions. It was because of my lack of awareness that I was unable to fully understand the full concept of fractions. I found it difficult to see how fractions related to each other and therefore struggled through the whole unit, however when using the creative shapes it almost instantly clicked and I could see some of the relationships between fractions. The problem solving activity based around using our fraction pieces aided greatly with the building of this newfound understanding. I found myself thinking more and I became deeply engaged.

Then we preceded the class with a number of creative problem solving activities that really got me thinking. I really enjoyed the straw game because it got me strategising about how to out smart my competitor. After a few games I began to see patterns and ways to win the game. Such as leaving only a certain number of straws so that my competitor would be forced to pick up that last straw.